


Eyes Closed, Head First, Can't Lose

by Duck_Life



Category: Mighty Med
Genre: Best Friends, Coming Out, Declarations Of Love, Gen, Kaz Is Gay, Misguided Make Outs, Platonic Male/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10441290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Kaz's confession shakes up the dynamics of their friendship. Oliver just wants things to go back to normal.





	

Oliver’s sitting in the rec room minding his own business when Kaz storms in brandishing a 2012 cat calendar. “Hey,” he says, a little huffy and fidgety— but then, he’s always fidgety. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, and you’re right.”

“Ah, the words I love to hear,” he smirks, leaning back on the couch. “I don’t even care about the context.”

Kaz fills him in anyway. “You said that best friends don’t keep things from each other, and you’re right,” he says. “And I guess it’s not really fair that I’m always snooping in your feelings journal and you don’t get the same opportunity with me. So.” He holds out the cat calendar. “This is _my_ feelings journal.”

Oliver stares. “It’s a kitty cat calendar.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really have the attention span to write a whole page,” he shrugs. “So I just jot down a few things every day.”

“But it’s 2014.”

“I know,” Kaz says, showing Oliver how he’s also holding similar cat calendars for 2013 and 2014. “These are the archives. The Kaz Chronicles, if you will.”

“And?”

Kaz shoots him an indecipherable look, and then he flips open the 2012 calendar. “January 20,” he reads. “‘Sort of crushing on someone in my algebra class. Weird.’”

“You told me about that,” Oliver reminds him. “Her name was Vicky, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Kaz says, scratching the back of his neck as the calendar pages flutter in his hands. “Thing is, _his_ name was actually _Victor_.”

“Oh,” Oliver says. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

They float there almost in suspended animation for a moment, Oliver acutely aware that his best friend’s whole outlook on life could hinge on this moment. He never knew… but, well, it’s not really about him, is it? He blamed Kaz for being so secretive, but if _this_ was the secret… well, yeah, it makes sense he’d want to be secretive.

“So you’re gay?” he says, just to be absolutely sure he didn’t misread something.

“As a maypole,” Kaz says. “Whatever that means.” Oliver opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but Kaz holds up a hand to stop him. “But wait,” he says in his best infomercial voice, “there’s more!”

Kaz flips to another page in the 2012 calendar. “August 7. ‘Maybe the best way to deal with all these weird feelings is to just never think about them.’ And then there’s a little drawing of a rainbow. Uh, August 15. ‘Well, that didn’t work.’ Frowny face.”

Oliver’s silent as he watches Kaz switch to the 2013 cat calendar and open it up. “February 25. ‘I think I’m in love with my best friend. Oh crap.’” Oliver’s mouth drops open but he’s careful not to say anything, waiting for Kaz to finish. “March 2. ‘No, I’m _definitely_ in love with my best friend. Double crap.’”

“Kaz.”

“Just hang on,” Kaz says, the calendar shaking in his hands as he flips through the months. “June 9. ‘He went on vacation. I miss him.’ September 18. ‘He and I started working together at MM so now I see him even more.’ And a drawing of a heart.” He swaps the calendars out so he’s going through the 2014 one. “April 9. ‘I tried to get over him but it sucks.’ April 20. ‘I don’t know if I even want to get over him.’ April 30, ‘I love him so much.’” His voice is starting to shake as much as the pages in his hands. “August 17. ‘I’m gonna tell him. Someday.’” Finally, Kaz looks up at Oliver. “So, uh. Now you know.”

Oliver, frankly, would have been less surprised if Kaz had walked in, transformed into a Martian and zapped him dead.

“Look,” he says, because the room’s been quiet too long and one of them has to say _something_. “I gotta ask… am I the guy?” Kaz just stares at him. “Yep. Got it. It’s me.”

“I’m not asking you for anything,” Kaz says, for once sounding serious and mature and it’s just _wrong_. This is the part where Kaz is supposed to laugh and say it was all a prank. “But you said I never tell you anything. Well. Now I told you something.”

“Right,” Oliver says. The air’s crackling with some kind of awkward electricity— and he can’t even blame Surge for it. He and Kaz are the only ones there. “Uh… thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“You, uh, said you were in love with me,” Oliver says, looking anywhere but at his best friend. “That’s really, that’s really nice. I’m being polite. Thank you.”

Kaz raises an eyebrow. “You’re welcome,” he says, and he clears his throat. “I have a patient, I’ve gotta go.” And he gives Oliver kind of a fakey smile and disappears out the door along with his cat calendars.

“So now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Oliver sighs as he hovers over a gurney the next day. He’s treating either Guava Man or Lava Man, but he’s so distracted he can’t remember which of them it is. “I just want things to go back to normal! But obviously, like, there’s nothing _wrong_ with him, and I don’t want him to think that, because he _is_ perfectly normal, you know? Well, not _normal_ , he’s _Kaz_ , but the point is that there’s nothing wrong with being gay.” Guava/Lava man (Oliver’s thinking Guava, given that he’s not oozing magma but rather glistening with what looks like pinkish fruit residue) opens his mouth to agree but Oliver steamrolls on. “It’s just that, you know, I’m not! I’m not gay! But he’s, I guess, in love with me? Which is flattering! And confusing!” Guava Man tries to motion to the wound in his side where seeds are seeping out, but Oliver waves away his concerns. “If Kaz told me he were in love with someone else, I’d want him to do anything he could to be with them. But the someone is me! I don’t know how to deal with that! And I really want to be a good friend, because he’s my _best_ friend. Am I being a good friend?”

“I think you’re being a great friend,” Guava Man assures him. “But you’re being a supremely awful doctor.”

Oliver shuts up and focuses on helping Guava Man, but his mind’s elsewhere. He loves Kaz as a friend, and Kaz loves him as something else, and it just leaves this big gaping confusing hole in everything Oliver knows about their relationship.

He doesn’t know what to do. But he knows he can’t lose Kaz.

That afternoon, Oliver heads over to Kaz’s house. He knocks on the door and greets Kaz’s mom when she answers, and he says hi to the cluster of Kaz’s younger siblings hanging out in the living room watching TV. He knows them all by name— all the more indication to him that he’s doing the right thing.

“Hey,” he says, walking into Kaz’s room without knocking. They never knock. They outgrew knocking after about ten years of best-friendship.

Kaz glances up from the graphic novel he’s reading on his bed. “Hey, buddy,” he says, but his voice sounds a little higher than normal. “How’s it going?”

Oliver doesn’t waste time coming up with an explanation or an excuse. Instead, he lunges across the room and plants a kiss on Kaz like it’s the most important thing in the world. And maybe it is.

“Whoa,” Kaz says, backing away even as Oliver aggressively tugs him closer. “What was that about? Are you dying?” He blanches. “Am I dying?”

“No one’s dying,” Oliver promises, and tugs Kaz closer by the grip on his t-shirt. He leans in to catch his best friend’s mouth with his own but Kaz dodges him and jerks away.

“Oliver, seriously, what the heck?”

Oliver looks baffled. “I thought this was what you wanted!”

“Boys throwing themselves into my bed to make out with me? Sure,” Kaz says, sitting upright against the wall cornering his bed. “Is it what _you_ want?”

Oliver blinks. “Of course it is,” he says too quickly. “You’re my best friend, and I want you to be happy. So. Let’s be boyfriends!”

Kaz stares at him blankly. “Boyfriends.”

“Sure,” Oliver says, voice strained. “We can go on dates, and… and kiss and stuff. I love you too, Kaz. I love you. So. It’s the same thing.” He doesn’t try to kiss Kaz again but he’s thinking about it.

“Uh-huh,” Kaz says, wrapping his hands around his knees. Oliver’s annoyed; Kaz doesn’t look as elated and chipper as he thought he’d be. “I know you mean well,” Kaz says, again sounding unnaturally mature and serious, “but your eyes give you away. And right now they’re saying ‘I’m a hetero.’”

Oliver presses his palms into his eyes, irritated at their betrayal. “I could be bi,” he says, not looking at Kaz.

“Sure,” Kaz says. “You could be. And down the line, there could be plenty of guys and gals who you do fall in love with.” Gently, he pulls Oliver’s hands away from his face. “But I’m not one of them.”

Oliver huffs. “How do you know that?”

“Because I know you,” Kaz says. “ _Oli-Pop_. And I know that you’d do anything for your best friend. Including pretending to be gay and in love with me just so I wouldn’t feel rejected.”

Oliver sighs, his eyes skipping around the room. In retrospect, he should have caught onto Kaz’s “big secret” earlier. The room’s plastered with superhero posters— specifically _male_ superhero posters. Specifically posters of male superheroes wearing extremely tight-fitting leotards. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Kaz shrugs, patting him on the shoulder. “I told you about how I felt because I was sick of not being… well, _me_. Especially around you. But if you turn right around and pretend to be someone else, then it just messes the whole thing up.”

“But I don’t want you to be… sad,” Oliver says, not able to think of a stronger, more accurate word. “I mean, I think about how I feel about Skylar, knowing she probably doesn’t feel the same way. It sucks! I don’t want _you_ to feel like that.”

“First of all, don’t flatter yourself, you’re no Skylar Storm,” Kaz jibes. “And second of all?” Kaz envelops him in a big hug. For the past two days, everything’s felt off and wrong and weird. _This_ feels right. Oliver hugs him back. “Yeah, sure, I love you in a gay way that kind of hurts sometimes,” Kaz says, still hugging him. “But I’m gonna get over that. I love you even more in the friend way, and that’s never going away. And I’d rather have you and me as friends who tell each other the truth than… I dunno, fake boyfriends because you felt guilty. I’d rather have us be us, any day.”

Oliver leans back and scoops up Kaz’s graphic novel. When he attack-kissed him, he must’ve knocked it off the bed. “Sorry I leapt before I looked,” he says, feeling a little embarrassed but mostly happy that things seem right with Kaz again.

“Yeah,” Kaz says, taking the book and smiling at his best friend. “It’s really doesn’t suit you.”


End file.
